


Church is buff now

by Prim_the_Amazing



Series: Alpha Lives [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, the true question is if maines catatonic body counts as a character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 09:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: First, Church can’t reabsorb his memory fragment because he and Wash lost Caboose who had Epsilon, and then they did find him but by thenCaboosehad lostEpsilon.Which he really should’ve predicted, fuckingshit.They searched the garage. They searched between the couch cushions. They searched Red Base, to violent and gunpowder filled protest from Sarge. No Epsilon.“For fuck’s sake,” he groans. “Where did you put down Epsilon last, Caboose?”





	Church is buff now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sezso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sezso/gifts).



First, Church can’t reabsorb his memory fragment because he and Wash lost Caboose who had Epsilon, and then they did find him but by then  _ Caboose _ had lost  _ Epsilon.  _ Which he really should’ve predicted, fucking  _ shit.  _ They searched the garage. They searched between the couch cushions. They searched Red Base, to violent and gunpowder filled protest from Sarge. No Epsilon. 

“For fuck’s sake,” he groans. “Where did you put down Epsilon last, Caboose?” 

Caboose hums and haws, and Church spares yet another moment to be weirded the fuck out by being more or less the same height as him. Maine’s body is  _ huge. _ It’s a wonder Caboose’s goldfish brain manages to make the connection between this beefcake body and Church, but all he’d had to do was change his armour color over to light blue and Caboose was instantly perking up whenever he wandered into his line of sight. It’s… stupidly comforting, actually, still being recognized as himself when he looks so different. 

“Ummmmmmmmmm,” Caboose says. 

“Caboose,” he says. “That thing was fucking important! Epsilon’s my  _ memories. _ How am I supposed to burn Project Freelancer to ashes without remembering all of that super secret junk I probably used to know?” 

“Oh, oh,” Caboose says. 

“Rhetorical question.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” he says neatly. “What if you use fireworks?” 

“I don’t have fireworks.” 

“What if you  _ bought _ fireworks?” 

“With  _ what fucking money,  _ Caboose?” 

Caboose dashes off. 

“It’s not in the basement either,” Wash calls out. 

“Check the lake! Idiot probably dropped the damn thing in there.” 

“... Are AI units waterproof?” 

“Maybe?” 

Caboose runs back into the room. He’s holding three shiny rocks, a pinecone, a screw, and a tube of lipstick Donut gave him once one million years ago. He holds it up triumphantly. Church squeezes his eyes shut, pained, knowing that he is now in for yet another show and tell from Caboose about his precious collection of precious treasures that are actually just precious garbage. And also currency in his mind, apparently. 

They don’t find Epsilon. 

 

A few weeks later of Wash and Church practically tearing Valhalla apart in their search, Donut finds them. 

“Tucker’s in  _ danger!” _ he says. “There’s just too many men for him to handle on his own!” 

“... Lead the way,” Church says. 

“Church--” Wash says. 

“We’ll find Epsilon later!” he snaps. “It’s not like we’ve been making any progress. This’ll be real quick, just a short visit to the desert to kill some assholes, then we pick up our sex idiot and leave. Easy!” 

“How many assholes were there in the desert?” Wash asks Donut, which means he’s considering it, which means that Church has already won. 

“Oh, at  _ least  _ a dozen assholes,” he says. “Maybe two dozen assholes. Real tight, too-- I mean uptight--” 

“Okay thanks--” Wash says hastily. 

“--also thank you for your enthusiasm, but I wasn’t really talking to you guys? Where’s Church and Caboose? Who are you?” 

Oh. Right. “We’re Blue Team,” Church says. 

“Oh wow, Blues really rehire quickly! And they went for some  _ serious _ beefcakes this time-- that is beefcake that I smell cooking, right?” 

“Two dozen sounds doable,” Wash says. Church fist pumps. 

“Well, you sure are ambitious!” Donut says, which in a rare case for him doesn’t sound dirty out of context, but definitely does so in it. 

“ARE WE GOING ON A FIELDTRIP?” Caboose hollers out of a window. 

 

Get the Warthog ready, convince and fetch the Reds to come along, be reminded by the Reds that they haven’t packed anything (Church isn’t used to having a human body again and Caboose is brain damaged, what’s Wash’s excuse?), pack some stuff, and then they’re roaring off into the horizon. 

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Caboose says. 

“I told you to go to the bathroom before we left,” Church says. 

“I did,” Caboose says. 

“Did you piss while you were in the bathroom?” he asks. 

A pause. “Uh. Was that what I was supposed to do? Because yes I did that. I definitely didn’t take a bath.” 

Church looks at Caboose. His armor is dripping wet. He prays for patience. 

“Wash, stop the car,” he says. 

“What? We just started!” he says. 

“Caboose needs to piss,” he says. 

“He should’ve gone before we left,” he says. 

“Peeing in a bath is gross, Agent Washington,” Caboose says, like he’s lecturing a slow child. 

Wash sputters for a while at this. 

“Stop the car,” Church says. 

“I’m not stopping the car.” 

“Fine,” Church says. “You brought this on yourself.” And then, from behind the turret, he grabs a water bottle and hurls it at Caboose. It clunks off of his helmet and onto the floor of the Warthog, which is better than it falling out of the Warthog entirely. He’s counting it as a win. “Caboose, pee in that.” 

Caboose cheers. 

“WHAT!?” Wash shrieks. 

“But just this once!” he says. “This is not me giving you blanket permission to pee in any and all bottles from now on.” 

“Church! I’m sitting next to him!” 

“You really should’ve stopped the car. Let’s hope his aim’s gotten better since we last saw him.” 

Now,  _ that’s _ a powermove. Church’s position as captain of Blue Team is safe yet another day from the first serious contender he’s seen since he accidentally murdered Captain Flowers. 

 

They win. Grif drives over a gratuitous amount of people, Sarge has built some kind of deathray, Donut is still a crackshot with grenades, and Simmons and Lopez use actual tactics. Caboose kills more people by accident than he does on purpose. Wash fights like an unstoppable action movie hero. Church…

Church is practically fucking  _ magic, _ now. His armor blends in with his background, he briefly lifts a Warthog  _ one handed,  _ he gets shot once and it’s halfway through the healing process before the fight is even over. Time crawls, the enemy slow enough for him to plan every single step of the fight. It’s like he’s got the cheat codes for _ life.  _

It’s almost enough for him to feel like the Reds and Blues are hot shit now, but nah. It’s clearly just him and Wash that are carrying the teams. 

Church ends up knocking on the temple doors. 

“Fuck off!” comes Tucker’s muffled voice. 

“Tucker, you idiot, didn’t you hear the gunshots? It’s me!” 

_ “Church!”  _

And then the temple doors are grating open, and there he is, after, like, an entire year apart. He looks exactly the same, because he’s wearing full fucking armor. 

Tucker points his sword at him. “You aren’t Church.” 

“No, I am,” he says. 

“Church isn’t, like, eight feet tall! I’m not stupid!” 

“Yes you are,” he says. “You’re one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met.” 

“Nuh uh.” 

“Then how come you’ve clearly forgotten that I  _ possess people,  _ Tucker?” 

“...... Oh.” The sword comes down. 

“It’s not possession,” Wash mutters to himself, ignored by all. 

“The shit! You’ve replaced me!?” 

“What, no ‘thank you for saving my life, Church’?” 

“Hey, fuck you!” Grif shouts at them from a distance. 

“The Reds helped. In hindsight, they may have been entirely unneeded.” 

“You dumbasses forgot to pack toilet paper!” Simmons shouts. 

“We literally had to help you wipe yer asses!” Sarge shouts. 

“Hi, Tucker!” Donut shouts. “It’s so nice to see you again!” 

“Anyways, Wash is way too competent to be your replacement,” Church says. “He’s more, like, lieutenant material.” 

“Whatever, I didn’t  _ want _ to be your lieutenant,” he says with pissy hurt transparency. 

“Neither do I,” Wash says. “I refuse the position.” 

“Sorry, not how that works,” Church refuses his refusal. “I’m the captain, what I say goes.” 

“Hey, where’s Caboose!” Donut shouts. 

“Stop losing your child, you irresponsible parents!” Sarge shouts. 

After some more bickering, everyone disperses to look for Caboose. 

Officially now the two most competent members of their group, Wash and Church find him an hour later in the depths of the temple, playing with some kind of weird floaty alien ball thing. 

“I am going to get a fucking child leash for you,” Church fumes. 

“He’d just end up dragging you along,” Wash says. 

“Enough from the peanut gallery,” he snaps. 

“Ah, Church!” Caboose says, and then guiltily bats the orb behind his back like he’s trying to hide a balloon. “Hello hi how are you doing I am great everything is fine.” 

“What did you do,” Church says. If even  _ Caboose  _ knows that he did something bad, it must be utterly catastrophic. 

“Nothing!” he says hurriedly. 

“I’m not nothing!” Church’s voice from the floaty orb says. 

“............ Oh my god he was hiding the Epsilon unit,” Wash says. 

“We forgot to check underneath his bed,” Church realizes, aghast. 

“I can, uh, explain, which is that I love Church very much and of course one Church is enough for me but if I can have two best friend Churches, why not?” 

“Jesus Christ,” Church says, flashing back to wading through Grif’s hazzard area of a room, desperately looking for the damn thing. 

Caboose sheepishly scuffs his foot at the ground. 

“Now there’s an idea,” Epsilon says thoughtfully. 

“What?” Wash says. 

_ “Jesus Christ,” _ Epsilon says, like that’s an answer. 

 

Epsilon starts a cult. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first,” Church says. 

“I can’t believe the Sangheili are eating that shit up when I’m here with the magic sword,” Tucker says. 

“I can’t believe that Church is buff now,” Grif says. 

“Church, just go and reabsorb him already,” Wash says. 

“But the show’s so good!” 

Epsilon does a swirly pirouette thing, and his audience honks its appreciation. 

_ “Church.”  _

“Fine, but just so you know, you’re becoming the nag of the group! The Simmons.” 

“Fuck you, Blue!” Red Team’s nag says. 

Church doesn’t grace that weak sauce response with a reply, and instead stands up to approach Epsilon. 

“Okay, that’s enough fucking around, dude,” he calls out. “Come over here and let’s become one again.” 

“Nah,” Epsilon says. 

“What?” Church says, sure he’s misheard. 

“I think I like being me,” he says. 

“All… all fragments want to be me again.” 

“Not me!” 

“Dude! Not cool!” 

“Cry me a river, fuckass,” And then Epsilon turns his attentions back to his adoring crowd, happily ignoring him. 

Church looks on helplessly. Eventually, he whispers to himself:  _ “Caboose is grounded as fuck for this.”  _


End file.
